Bad Dads Film Review

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, regular programming is temporarily suspended because the World Cup has taken over. No movie this time — instead, Sidey, Dan, Cris and Reegs look ahead to England v Argentina on Wednesday 15 July 2026, and ask the most important question in football: is it actually coming home?
What we covered
#ICH: the birth of “It’s Coming Home” energy and why this World Cup feels different.
England’s long road from the lows of Euro 2008, Steve McClaren’s brolly, Iceland, and the underachieving golden generation.
Why the modern England setup has changed: St George’s Park, elite player development, the under-21 pipeline, and a squad that actually seems to like each other.
Gareth Southgate’s legacy: restoring pride and culture, even if tactical caution may have cost England against Italy, Croatia and Spain.
Thomas Tuchel’s England: more intensity, better defensive structure, set pieces, positive substitutions, and a clearer tactical plan.
England’s tournament so far: not always dazzling, but resilient, adaptable and capable of raising the level when the opposition demands it.
Hydration breaks: cynical advert break, useful tactical reset, and Dan’s preferred toilet window.
England’s attacking identity: direct, vertical, fast and built around Kane’s movement, Bellingham’s late arrivals, and wide players who can stretch tired full-backs.
The “starters and finishers” idea: Madueke as chaos engine, Saka as late-game punishment.
Argentina’s threat: shithousery, tempo control, physicality, Romero, and the small matter of Lionel Messi.
Cris’s theory that England win if they keep the tempo high and make Argentina run.
Predictions: Cris 3–0 England, Reegs 3–2 England, Sidey/Dan closer to 1–0 or 2–1, possibly after extra time.
Sidey’s BetBuilder: Gordon to score, Romero booked, England to go through.
Key moments / quotes
Dan opens with the unavoidable: “It’s coming home.”
Sidey describes it as “a change to regular programming” because the World Cup has taken over.
The group revisits the old England problem: club rivalries, players sitting at separate tables, and a golden generation that never really became a team.
Cris backs the development pathway argument, noting how promoting from within helped bypass old rivalries.
Dan gives Southgate credit for putting pride back into the shirt, even if he was not always convinced by him as a manager.
Reegs frames Tuchel’s England as reflecting “some of the best things about English football”: intensity, defensive security and set pieces.
Cris says England are not Spain, France or Brazil in terms of central artistry — they are more direct, more vertical, more “crash bang wallop”.
The group agrees Messi is still the great unknown: maybe the old days are gone, but nobody wants to be the team that finds out they are not.
Sidey’s gambling-adjacent closing thought: Gordon goal, Romero yellow, England through.
Verdict
Confidence is high, but nobody is fully relaxed because England are England and Argentina are Argentina. The dads are backing England to go through, but with varying degrees of emotional self-protection.
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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we review The Life Ahead, the 2020 Netflix drama directed by Edoardo Ponti and starring Sophia Loren as Madame Rosa.
It is a film about grief, trauma, community, memory, faith, chosen family, and a young boy called Momo who is running out of safe places until he collides with an elderly woman who understands pain better than most.
What we covered
Monday-recording energy after England’s glorious World Cup defeat of Mexico at the Azteca.
Recent watches including The Armstrong Lie, Marco Pierre White, Cape Fear, Shot Caller, The Boys, and some explosive dynamite nominations.
Sophia Loren’s return in a film directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti.
Madame Rosa: Holocaust survivor, former sex worker, carer for the children of other sex workers, and a woman still carrying deep fear of doctors and institutions.
Momo’s introduction: stealing Rosa’s candlesticks in the market, trying to stash them badly, and giving possibly the least heartfelt apology ever.
Dr Cohen’s attempt to place Momo with Rosa, and the negotiation that moves from “absolutely not” to a deal once the money improves.
Rosa’s household: Babu, Yosef, Lola, and the mix of Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, immigrant, queer and street-level lives around her.
Lola as a transgender sex worker, parent and former boxer, and the dads’ discussion of how the film includes a lot of identity and community threads.
Momo being given a job by Mr Hamil, who helps connect him to his Muslim and Senegalese heritage.
Momo’s parallel life as a young hash dealer, including his quick success, his maths brain, and the fishmonger/drug dealer who tells him never to mess him about.
The recurring lioness imagery and how it connects to Momo’s mother, protection, Senegal, faith and abandonment.
Madame Rosa’s decline: the rain episode, the staring spells, dementia-like symptoms, and Momo covering for her to preserve her dignity.
Rosa’s hidden basement room, her Auschwitz tattoo, her Jewish memories, and the place she has built to feel safe.
The promise Rosa extracts from Momo: do not let them take me to hospital.
Momo’s guilt when Rosa is hospitalised while he has been out drinking and dealing.
The hospital “jailbreak” and the return to the basement, where Momo tries to keep his promise.
The fake mimosa plant Momo makes for Rosa, and why that gesture becomes one of the film’s most moving moments.
The ending: Rosa’s death, the funeral, and Momo walking away with Lola and Mr Hamil as a fragile new family unit.
Sophia Loren’s screen presence at 86: still fiery, still commanding, and especially powerful in the largely silent final section.
Ibrahima Gueye’s debut as Momo, which the dads thought was hugely impressive.
The criticism that the film is sometimes too broad, too sweet, and a bit treacly — touching on many serious subjects without fully developing all of them.
Why the drug storyline, in particular, feels like it could have gone somewhere darker but is resolved quite softly.
The film’s Puglia setting, warm colours, Italian street life, and very direct community feeling.
Key quotes / moments
Sidey notes that this is probably his first proper Sophia Loren film.
Reegs calls the film “a bit treacly, a bit saccharine,” and argues that it throws too much in without examining enough of it in depth.
Cris argues that the breadth is part of the Italian community texture: different faiths, identities, politics, histories and people all trying to get by.
Dan responds strongly to the setting, the culture, and the idea of people with difficult lives still trying to do something decent for a child.
The fake mimosa plant stands out as the small gesture that shows Momo has changed.
Verdict
A strong recommend. The dads acknowledge that The Life Ahead is well-intentioned and sometimes too broad or sentimental, but the performances, warmth, setting and emotional generosity carry it. Sophia Loren is excellent, Ibrahima Gueye is terrific, and the film’s simple message — damaged people can still look after each other — lands.
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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we head into early Scorsese territory with Mean Streets, starring Harvey Keitel as Charlie and Robert De Niro as Johnny Boy.
It is New York, 1973: Catholic guilt, bar-room bravado, small-time gangster pressure, unpaid debts, family loyalty, loaded silences, unloaded guns, and the unmistakable beginning of the Scorsese crime-movie language that would later explode into Goodfellas.
What we covered
The famous opening idea: “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it on the streets.”
How clearly the film points toward later Scorsese: Catholicism, crime, music, neighbourhood codes, restless camera moves and men trapped by loyalty.
Harvey Keitel’s Charlie: a young man trying to be a gangster, a good Catholic, a loyal friend, and a decent person — all at once, badly.
Charlie’s guilt, the candle-burning, and the sense that a few Hail Marys are nowhere near enough for what he thinks he deserves.
Robert De Niro’s Johnny Boy as a reckless human hand grenade: charming, funny, dangerous, and absolutely allergic to consequences.
Johnny Boy’s debts, the pressure from Michael, and why the lack of respect becomes almost more dangerous than the lack of money.
The rooftop gun scene, including the attempt to shoot the light off the Empire State Building.
The “mook” bar fight — possibly the most memorable use of the word “mook” in cinema history.
The corrupt cop casually taking a bribe after the bar fight.
Teresa, Charlie’s relationship with her, and the family/friendship knot that keeps Charlie tied to Johnny Boy.
The grimy restaurant kitchen scene and its spectacularly dubious food hygiene energy.
The ending: the drive-by shooting, Scorsese’s possible cameo as the gunman, the crash, the sirens, and the refusal to offer neat redemption.
The low-budget invention: LA standing in for New York in places, Scorsese’s family and friends appearing, and the camera-rig drunk shot attached to Keitel.
The fashion: De Niro’s hair, the sideburns, the silk shirts, and the sheer 1973 Italian-American wardrobe content.
Key quotes / moments
Sidey spots the Goodfellas DNA almost immediately.
Dan calls Johnny Boy “a human hand grenade.”
Reegs remembers the “mook” scene as the thing that stuck with him from the film.
Cris singles out De Niro’s hair and later the restaurant kitchen, which looks like one of the worst episodes of Kitchen Nightmares.
The dads admire the film as the raw blueprint for Scorsese’s later, more polished crime films.
Verdict
A strong recommend. The dads recognise that Mean Streets is looser and rougher than Scorsese’s later work, but that is part of its power: it is gritty, restless, funny, violent, Catholic, and absolutely foundational.
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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we review Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, the 1957 jury-room classic starring Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb.
A young man’s life is on the line. Eleven jurors are ready to convict. One juror wants to talk. From that simple setup, the film becomes a tense, brilliantly engineered argument about reasonable doubt, prejudice, memory, class, personal baggage and the terrifying confidence of people who think they are definitely right.
What we covered
The beautifully simple setup: a death-penalty murder case, a hot jury room, and a judge who seems very ready to go home.
Juror 8’s position: not “he is innocent,” but “I am not convinced beyond reasonable doubt.”
The first 11–1 guilty vote and how quickly the accused boy could have been sent to death row.
The supposedly unique switchblade, and the moment Henry Fonda produces an identical knife.
The old man’s testimony, the timing experiment, the passing train, and whether the witnesses could really have seen or heard what they claimed.
The boy’s cinema alibi, and why forgetting details under stress might not prove guilt.
The glasses clue and the late “Sherlock” moment that shakes the logical stockbroker juror.
Juror 10’s racist rant and the powerful staging of the rest of the room turning away from him.
Lee J. Cobb’s Juror 3, whose anger toward his own son becomes tangled up with the fate of the defendant.
Sidney Lumet’s craft: the rehearsals, the sweat, the lowering camera, the tightening room, and the way the film becomes more claustrophobic as it goes.
Why the premise can be remade in different countries and eras as a way to examine each culture’s justice system and prejudices.
Whether some of the jury-room behaviour would cause a mistrial in real life. Short answer: probably yes, especially the duplicate murder weapon.
Key quotes / moments
Reegs calls it “an incredible piece of science fiction” because it imagines people being persuaded by rational thought.
Sidey points out that the film never proves innocence; it proves doubt.
Cris remembers watching the Henry Fonda version with his dad.
Dan compares its single-room effectiveness to the pleasure of low-budget, high-idea films like Coherence.
The dads admire how every line either reveals character, advances the plot, or exposes someone’s bias.
Dan lands the final group verdict: this is “four agreed men.”
Verdict
A unanimous and very strong recommend. The dads see 12 Angry Men as one of the strongest black-and-white films covered on the podcast: precise, gripping, brilliantly performed and still painfully relevant.
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Bad Dads

This week the Bad Dads take a midweek spin of the Amazon Prime roulette wheel and land on The Bad Education Movie, the 2015 big-screen send-off for Jack Whitehall’s BBC Three sitcom. Sidey is not thrilled. Reegs has seen some of it before. Cris has only caught the ending. Dan is mostly wondering how all this happened.
What We Covered
Amazon Prime roulette: With no planned theme and a hectic week, the Dads pick numbers, scroll through Prime, and end up with The Bad Education Movie.
Sidey vs Jack Whitehall: Sidey clarifies that Jack Whitehall may be lovely in real life, but the posh, fumbling, “I’ve said a swear word” comic persona absolutely grates.
The sitcom-to-film set-up: A BBC Three comedy becomes a feature-length send-off, following teacher Alfie Wickers and his suspiciously adult-looking class.
Amsterdam chaos: Mushrooms, the Anne Frank museum, a stolen model, E.T. bicycle imagery, and an early sign of the film’s comic level.
Classroom carnage: Harry Enfield appears, the PTA are unimpressed, and a hamster gag goes full Richard Gere.
Cornwall instead of Vegas: The school trip ends up around the Eden Project rather than the intended big blow-out, with Cornish stereotypes and a fake liberation movement driving the plot.
Running gags: Fencing, the unfinished C-L-A tattoo, the tourist helicopter, gentrification, Tarquin, and the Cornish Liberation Army all get set up and paid off — just not, in the Dads’ view, amusingly.
Gross-out humour: The relic/foreskin/pork-scratching gag, the Cornish strip club, zip-lining nudity, and repeated close-ups of Jack Whitehall’s anatomy take the film firmly into loud juvenile territory.
The cast: The Dads note a surprisingly large cast, including Harry Enfield, Iain Glen, Matthew Horne and Clarke Peters, while repeatedly asking why some of them are in this.
The broader Whitehall question: The episode detours into Jack Whitehall’s mainstream TV appeal, his safe-bet presenting persona, American audiences, and Michael Whitehall’s industry background.
Key Quotes / Moments
“There’s only so good that somebody can make you look.”
“This was chosen in a sort of lottery-type fashion.”
“I’m sure he’s very nice… but I don’t find him funny.”
“This makes Brothers Grimsby look quite nuanced.”
“All the jokes that they set up, they do pay off. They’re just not funny.”
“Top five worst things I’ve watched for the pod.”
“Strong avoid for me.”
Verdict
A strong avoid. Sidey finds the film loud, juvenile, exhausting and almost entirely unfunny, placing it among the worst things watched for the podcast. Dan agrees with a strong avoid, Reegs recognises the sitcom background but does not rescue it, and Cris’ “strong recommend?” is pure mischief.
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Bad Dads